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Jerry Taylor dares to criticize Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity at National Review:

While I will admit to not listening to their shows, the snippets that I have caught over the years have irritated. One can agree with a majority of their vision regarding what constitutes good public policy and who is worthy of my vote while being annoyed by the manner in which their arguments are being made and chagrined by the dubious logic and dodgy evidence being forwarded to buttress their arguments. One can also be driven to frustration by the seemingly endless parade of political red herrings and conspiracy-minded nonsense that I have heard both of them traffic in.

I am certain that charges of “elitist!” will flood my inbox over this. But do either of these guys actually convince anyone (elitist or not) outside of the choir? Limbaugh’s popularity numbers suggest not (are any available for Hannity?). I think P. J. O’Rourke gets it right on this matter.

Katherine Jean Lopez responds (note her failure to grasp that “snippets” are all that most Americans hear as they formulate their opinion of conservative leaders):

Listening to “snippets” of talk radio will never do the job these men do daily justice. Have you listened to countless calls from on-the-fence or outright hostile listeners these guys take? If you have, I doubt you’d dismissively ask “do either of these guys actually convince anyone (elitist or not) outside of the choir?” Everyone loves to say Rush is an “entertainer,” which is absolutely true — he is entertaining — but he’s also a teacher. As I say to young people all the time, listen to him consistently and you hear someone who knows what he believes in. It’s why he’s so adamant that conservatism not be watered down or remade.

Popularity ratings are all fine and good, but more people hear what Rush has to say than know what the Cato Institute (or The Corner, alas!) is saying today. Rush and Sean are incredible assets for the conservative movement. And conservatives ought to appreciate and even celebrate that.

You might not agree with everything. You might do it differently. But I think our time is better spent each doing our part rather than shooting at those who are doing theirs — and successfully.

I think Ms. Lopez is mistaken on several points. An attentive listener who tunes into Mr. Limbaugh daily, as I once did while driving around the Inland Empire as a beat reporter, quickly grasps that conservatism isn’t the intellectual force behind his program. Of course, he does hold certain conservative positions, puts forth some bits of sound analysis, lays claim to some policy stances that I share, and loudly proclaims his allegiance to movement principles. At his core, however, he is an opportunistic rhetorician: if an opportunity to skewer a liberal arises he’ll take it, never mind the underlying principles, or even whether he defended a conservative for a similar sin two months prior; when loyalty to the GOP conflicts with adherence to conservative principles (e.g., 2000 to 2008) he generally sides with his party; he prefers capitalistic “creative destruction” to community preservation, which is fine and defensible but isn’t particularly conservative; often when he flouts political correctness, his purpose isn’t to speak unpopular truths — I’ll defend anyone doing that — but to rile his critics and make himself seem daring to an adolescent segment of his listeners.

Mr. Limbaugh’s most spurious arguments succeed in part because he is the preeminent talent in his medium. One unhappy consequence is that, insofar as he is a teacher, his pupils are prone to regurgitating monologues whose idiocy is laid bare when they are delivered by less talented communicators. I admit that I am vexed by Mr. Limbaugh partly because he is intelligent enough—and a talented enough communicator—to succeed even if he eschewed the constant red herrings, misrepresentations, double standards, unnecessarily pompous rhetoric, and spurious arguments. Sean Hannity at least has the excuse that his sole comparative advantages as a pundit, beyond his faux-friendly demeanor, is a willingness to transparently spout disingenuous talking points, manipulate his medium so that arguments are won on volume rather than substance, and antagonize guests in a most ungentlemanly manner. Were I raising a kid who argued at the dinner table as bombastically as Sean Hannity argues on television, I’d wash his mouth out with lattes and the dread Dijon mustard. God help us if he is teaching conservatives how to win converts.

Obviously, I dispute Ms. Lopez’s assertion that Messieurs Limbaugh and Hannity are incredible assets for the conservative movement—a proposition for which evidence is never cited. Is there any? It seems to me that as these figures rose to prominence, the conservative movement declined to its lowest ebb since Barry Goldwater, and the nomination of John McCain, the man Rush Limbaugh least wanted to win the GOP nomination, ought to cause conservatives to ponder whether the radio host is as powerful as they think he is. Sometimes I feel as though Limbaugh is the right’s version of the Hollywood celebrity fallacy — oh, that person has such a large following, they must be influential among the American people generally, and we’re so lucky to have them on our side!

Ms. Lopez concludes by writing that “our time is better spent each doing our part rather than shooting at those who are doing theirs — and successfully.” This is a restatement of Ronald Reagan’s dictum to never criticize another Republican (never mind that The Gipper didn’t actually follow his own commandment). I often wonder, when this is invoked by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity fans in defense of those men, why they never object to criticism of conservatives when it is Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul or John McCain or Colin Powell or David Frum or David Brooks or Ross Douthat or David Dreier or John Boehner being criticized. There is a strange phenomenon on the right whereby it is okay for certain Republicans to be criticized for what amounts to being heretics, whereas it is verboten to criticize other conservatives, because people on the right aren’t supposed to snipe at members of their own team. I’d oppose rules like that in any circumstance, but they might make internal sense were consistent characteristics used to determine ideological purity. In fact, one gets to be a conservative who must not be criticized based on some weird standard I cannot figure out, except to say that Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush are all occasionally invoked as guys beyond criticism from fellow right-wingers, so multiple divorces, the idea that the executive possesses unchecked power in wartime, torture, warrantless wiretapping, atrocious immigration proposals and wild deficit spending are apparently not disqualifying factors.

I don’t get it.

UPDATE: Now that I think about it, the deciding factor is perhaps how much one is reviled by liberals, and how over-the-top absurd one’s most strident liberal critics are. Any other ideas?

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Nice post. I also listened to Rush for several years. It was fun listening to him lampoon the Clintons. I tired of his schtick as it became clear his show was about him, more than it was about any political philosophy. I a now if the opinion that he is just the leader of the group that makes big bucks by keeping people angry. He is good at that. He presents little in the way of positive ideas. As long as he, Hannity and others of their ilk hold so much sway among Republicans, it will be difficult to salvage the party. If you have not, read Posner’s recent critique.
Steve

Relly Conor, its just this simple.
It is Kylon and the Democrats vs the Pythagoreans.
Palinism should really be called Kylonism.
We all mostly know that it is 90% attitude and 10% aptitude….But Kylon believed and Palin and Rush and Hannity all believe there is no aptitude.
It is Joe the Plumber vs the “elites”, Sarah vs the “elite gotcha-media”, the beckers and juggalos vs academe and the aristoi.

Here’s what I find frustrating. Limbaugh is what he is: a rightwing distributor of political fast food, a lowbrow, small-d democratic phenomenon, and a successful radio personality. What more can we possibly expect? When everyone has the vote, Limbaugh is something that happens. But Ms. Lopez?

Given her position, her tastes are supposed to be more refined. Every time I read her and that Heather girl at the Corner, I feel like one of those poor bastards in the Pizza Hut commercials who get all dressed up to go to a fancy Italian restaurant only to find they’ve been tricked into eating industrial-grade pasta-in-a-box.

Now, I understand the strategic (electoral) value of blowing kisses at Limbaugh every once in a while. He motivates the base, yada yada. But to call him ‘teacher’? Pathetic.

“At his core, he is an opportunistic rhetorician…”
You can make a thorough case for a particular position on the news of the day in, let us say, ten minutes- not more than twenty. That’s why they have to talk slowly on NPR. On a talk radio show, the other two-plus hours are there for digression, humor, rhetorical flourish and the like; or at least they should be. Rush’s genius is that he recognizes this and has the ability to execute this strategy. He often sacrifices the systematic case to the frivolous but entertaining aside, while at other times he engages opposing arguments and exposes their inconsistencies (he is rather like P. J. O’Rourke in this regard,) but I’m not sure why you would say either tendency is more central than the other.

I think the philosophy at the core of Rush’s show is a belief that nearly everyone has more God-given talent than he ever realizes (a claim Rush frequently makes), and that the purpose of life is to fully realize that talent (implied.) This view obviously has political implications, but it is not primarily political, which is why the dominant tone of the show is not anger.

During the Bush years Rush got corrupted by being the party in power and also played silly games of chicken with the Left. But he has picked it up again during the Age of Obama.

I think the philosophy at the core of Rush’s show is a belief that nearly everyone has more God-given talent than he ever realizes (a claim Rush frequently makes), and that the purpose of life is to fully realize that talent (implied.)

Exactly. That is the Kylon argument. All men are created equal , no exception for heredity, either genetic or memetic. And it feels great for Kylon and his posse to virtually chop up all those snobby elitist pythagoreans with scythes and burn their temple.

Check out the comments on this Allahpundit thread …..all the commenters need are pitchforks and torches…..or scythes.
As a pythagorean, I take a dim view of Kylonic leveling, but you must admit, that Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber are the fully realized expression of the Kylonic ideal.
Here’s the meme— we are just as smart as you snobby advantaged elitist scientists and and academics….we are smart in a different way, a better way…..the way that REALLY counts! We are godsmart and we have “commonsense”. Everything else is immaterial.

While I will admit to not reading the entire post, the snippets that I have read have annoyed and amused. Most of the right wing criticism of Limbaugh has been to accuse him of not being truly conservative, an approach that reminds me of a point Poulos made on this same site – in a different context, of course: “‘You are a not-you. You are what you are not.’ That claim is violent because it is profane — it wills contradiction so as to cause destruction.”

Many of the Limbaugh critics who claim to be above “movement conservatism” seem to spend an awful lot of time deciding who is or is not part of the movement.

Rush Limbaugh probably doesn’t convert any liberals, but post titles like this one might. I loled—good work, Conor.

As far as why Rush doesn’t convert anyone—it’s the same reason the mainstream liberal media has a hard time converting conservatives. His Otherness is such an essential part of his identity and arguments that liberals don’t really have any desire to bracket their beliefs and listen to him, just like so many conservatives don’t want to bracket their beliefs and listen to Katie Couric. There are people towards the center who might be swayed one way or another, but unabashed leftists or rightists aren’t looking to have their minds changed when they listen to these media.

Dude….all the conservatives that get crits are the ones that flunk Palinism. You are l33ts, you can’t be real conservatives. You value academics, intellectual curiousity, Jefferson’s “natural aristocracy”?GTFO.

Wha? Is that too obvious for you?
The New Conservatism is Palinism, aka Kylonism.
That is the litmus test for membership. No elites need apply.
All these years conservatives scammed the base with that “all men are created equal” BS.
Well, it ain’t true.
All men should be equal under the law, but no man is equal under the genes.
Here comes Sarah Palin, the “realdeal”. She’s Kylon in drag.
And now she’s coming out with a book.
You will never be rid of her. She has redefined the GOP, even if she never runs.
She is the perfect distillation of class resentment and IQ envy.

All these accusations, but no examples. So the accusers can say almost anything and get by with it. The same charges could be made against NPR, btw.

I used to listen to my hero Rush a lot. He’s still my hero, but I no longer have patience for his whining, his ignorance, and his partisanship. I don’t have patience for the same crap on NPR, either, but the NPR people are not my heroes.

And…you can’t SAY it Conor.
Or the base WILL reject you.
You know the GOP can’t survive without elites and intellectuals….but if you say it, you are dead to the base.
The base is like a horse that got into the barn and is devouring a whole grain bin full of delicious Palinism. It will kill the horse, but you can’t lead the horse or beat the horse away from the grain.

btw, did you know donkeys wont eat themselves to death? They are smarter than horses.
Hybrid vigor.

“My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.

By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party. “

You have no party, Conor.
That is why moderates get shunned….anyone bright enough to see what is happening becomes a traitor to Palinism. Selecting Palin for VP (initially cynical pandering and tokenism on Team McCain’s part) was actually like summoning an immortal demon, the spiritual heiress of Kylon.
And you guys try real hard not to talk about her, and Newt and Bill Bennett pretend she doesn’t exist.
Because if you crit her, gtfo elitist snobs.
;)

I think you would do well to read some Bagehot. I just finished Gertrude Himmelfarb’s essay on him (you can find it in her book “The Moral Imagination”) and she is particularly intrigued with what Bagehot has to say about the divide between the “common man” and the aristocrats (which I think speaks to your comments about Sarah Palin):

“Indeed, Bagehot may be said to have been more respectful of the populace than his critics, for he credited the common people with a peculiarly intellectual, one might say, reverence for ideas. The people were interested more in the theatricalities than in the mundane workings of government because they saw the theatricalities as the “embodiments of the greatest human ideas.” They refused to become “absorbed in the useful” because they did not like “anything so poor.” They could not be appealed to on the basis of material wants, unless those wants were thought to be the result of tyranny. They were willing, in fact, to sacrifice their material goods, their very persons, “for what is called an idea—for some attraction which seems to transcend reality, which aspires to elevate men by an interest higher, deeper, wider than that of ordinary life.” It was the upper classes, by implication, who were so poor in mind and soul as to be contented with the useful, the material, the efficient.

Bagehot minced no words. The common people were “stupid.” But their stupidity was their virtue—and their wisdom as well. For not only did it spare them the futile turmoil and suicidal excesses of a more nimble-minded people like the French; it also meant that they were never taken in by the typically French fallacy of supposing that political problems could be solved rationally, by the criteria of consistency, simplicity, or logical coherence. The wise English statesman had enough in common with the people to feel the force and the good sense of their stupidity. Bagehot was not saying that the good statesman was one who knew best how to exploit or manipulate the masses in the interests of good government. He was saying that the masses themselves had an instinct for good government, which the statesman was bound to respect.”

lol, Jeff, I’m just answering Conor’s question.
I have no argument with Bagehot…the American people consistantly elect the president that answers the Greatest Threat to our country in that slice of spacetime. But unfortunately, in the case of GW, elected in a time of peace of and prosperity on a wafer thin electoral college margin of 5 votes (the only time a culture war candidate CAN win), he hadn’t the substrate to deal with 9/11.
Palin is, to be sure, a nice enough ordinary average lady as self-styled talking dogs with lipstick go. Unfortunately her advent on the electoral scene raised an ancient unkillable demon from the dawn of history.
Kylon of Croton, and the myth that all men are created equal.
That is why Frum and Douthat, Reihan and Conor, et al are reviled by the base…they are intellectuals, elite.
If you crit Palin or Joe the Plumber you are a traitor. If you advocate moderation to seek wider appeal, you are a heretic. Rush and K-Lo get it.
Absolutely.
;)

I find Rush a tragic figure. He had his dream job on Monday Night Football but got fired becasue he couldn’t help being the asshole that he is. That is the essence of tradgedy. The most recent Bush can only be regarded as a tragic figure as well. It is only recently that I have really understood tradgedy thanks to Mr. Bush.

hehe, Palin as well…..olbos, koros, hubris, ate. She was just a citizen doing a decent job up in Alaska, and got picked as part of the traditional Republican scam-the-base-into-voting-for-elites-pretending-to-be-noble-yeoman-farmers strategy. Lo and behold….Palin turned out to be profoundly non-elite. A perfect symbolic host for the demonspirit of Kylon. Now the base is like a gila monster. Won’t let go until you’re dead.
Relly, its perfect.
The Revenge of the NYFs.
Like Bacon said, revenge is a kind of wild justice.

It is obvious that you have NOT listened to Rush on a regular basis. If you did, you would know that his arguments are steeped in data and fact mixed with a large dose of humor (and a little absurdity). I have listened to his show since I was in college, and never once did I find his humor “low-brow.”

What this post displays – yet again – is that the old Rockefeller Northeast Country Club Republicans will never understand why Rush or even Reagan were popular. You are afraid to look like a ‘hick’ to your dandy-boy liberal friends who tease you at the in-crowd cocktail parties about Rush.

If you believe that Rush is not important to the Conservative Movement – a belief that runs contrary to what both Ronald Reagan and WFB firmly held – then you are obviously nowhere near the center of that movement.

I must say, Conor, that posts like yours and Douthat’s and the thougthful replies they elicit could possibly convert a Lib like me. This is sane, coherent, logical argument. I can’t take the Rushes and Hannitys out there seriously. I sort of think that they’re just clowning for bucks like Beck.
Yours is the kind of debate the country needs. You guys need to dump the wingnuts and cultists. This includes Ms. Lopez, who seems brainwashed, at best.

At first I wondered what this Conor Friedersdorf must be like. In these times I like to use images.google.com so I got this:
<p>http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&#38;q=Conor+Friedersdorf&#38;btnG=Search+Images&#38;gbv=2</p>

Is this how bad our dialogue has devolved? In the entire article, there is not one fact or statement provided. I have been listening to Limbaugh for a few years now and he has opened my mind to so many great ideas and books, i.e. Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Road to Serfdom, on and on and on. The article above is attacking for the purpose of attacking. Clearly the author intensely dislikes Rush. I have never met Rush, I don’t know whether I would like him as a person (I would probably think I would especially for all of the charitable things he’s done). Who knows where this intense dislike, almost hatred for Rush comes from. I could understand if these attacks on Rush deal with his stance on issues, but none of it is. The criticism of McCain and Huckabee came from their stances on policy issues, not from any dislike of their character. Rush and Hannity repeated many times how many times they respect John McCain during the campaign, but then would very clearly explain that they disagree with him on policy issues. Politics is a very dirty game, but it would be nice if everyone would try to remain focused on the issues, rather than personal attacks. I don’t like Randi Rhodes because I think she is way off base on her ideas. Clearly Conor Friedersdorf doesn’t give a damn about the issues and would rather try to get a little attention in the media (let’s see if he appears on MSNBC or CNN in the next day or two). He criticizes Hannity for his style of debate, but I highly doubt that his style will convince anyone of the merits of conservatism.

you are s-0-0-0-0 funny. Sir you are not smart, important, or an elistist
you just try to be, hahahahaha funny. You guys are trying so hard to be
thought of as elistist, smart etc. please get a grip, compared to Rush you
are a dim wit

Reading books and referring to them don’t make you smart. Human equality ain’t no myth. Not here in America. We are all made equal. Even the elite Conor knocks the elite Limbrow for not being popular enough.

Seems to this country boy that Palin is more elite than Biden cuz she lost the election. Maybe Obama was superior at fooling more rubes (and the educated rubes who call themselves elites) than McCain. But why should a true elite be impressed with that?

Just cuz you have an unequal (and unfair) access to social goods doesn’t really make you elite. If you have some skill I don’t got, that’s great, you can be useful to the rubes too, and if you are popular with them, I spose you can call yrself elite, but that should be enough for you. Why be so obnoxious about inequality when all the differences among Americans today are negligible.

Do you really think Palin is just a dog compared to the Cicero’s in D.C. and the think tanks, or that there are any clear-cut classes of people in America today? Isn’t being moderate and mainstream in America, just a sign of how flattened out and meaningless all our distinctions are?
Isn’t a commenter who keeps saying “Kylon” and “Kylonism” sort of just indicative of how pathetic American society has become, and how equal, or even inferior, our elites are to us common folk. At least we have the good taste to reject those who have to insist on their superiority and that others respect their learnin.

Maybe that’s why “the base” reviles ya’ll – ya’ll go out of yer way to say yer superior and don’t get why commoners like what you don’t. But yer aristocratic lifestyle that allows you the freedom to sneer only exist cuz they are graciously tolerated by the American people and their “myths.” But don’t be mistaken, we don’t hate ya’ll cuz your beautiful, we just find it annoying and laughable that you actually think ya’ll are examples of inequality. Ain’t no true elites round no more, at least nowhere I see in public. Not in this country. Clinton, Palin, Obama, Bush, Biden? These are all the same from where I’m sittin – all equally inferior to true elites. Any difference ya’ll harp on just don’t matter that much. So why harp so? to feel better about yourself? You really shouldn’t, not if you truly disdain mediocrity so much, and have high standards.

We common folk just wish we could have true elites, but we don’t feel compelled to always point out how far short ya’ll fall from them old-tyme aristocrats those schools of higher learnin exposed you to (which we fund and put up with for some reason). Cuz we were raised to have some tact. So good God, man, show some gratitude and grace, and at least live up to yr pretensions to be better than another piece of campus trash.

“There is a strange phenomenon on the right whereby it is okay for certain Republicans to be criticized for what amounts to being heretics, whereas it is verboten to criticize other conservatives, because people on the right aren’t supposed to snipe at members of their own team.”

And you complain about other people’s shoddy reasoning?

First – you conflate Republican and Conservative. Do you consider Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe, and Arnold Schwarzenegger conservatives? It would seem so since they are all Republicans. This is precisely the problem conservatives like Rush and Sean had with McCain – he is a republican but he is not reliably conservative.

Second – nice straw man you built there. Who says you can’t criticize certain other conservatives? Last week Michelle Malkin had a post titled “Rush Is Wrong”. She wasn’t kidding – she laid out exactly why she thought he was wrong about. Allahpundit at Hot Air took Rush to task over his comments about Colin Powell just over a week ago. I don’t recall seeing anyone calling for his or Michelle’s heads. And it didn’t stop Rush from featuring Hot Air star Ed Morrissey in his latest newsletter.

Third – perhaps you’d like provide some examples for your assertion – since you complain that Katherine Lopez fails to provide any for hers.

Nobody’s afraid of K-Lo. Palin is a non-issue now. But if McCain should have won…..dodged a cononball, for sure.

— calvin1 · May 14, 03:24 PM · #

Nope, Calvin……I think Palinism/Kylonism will end up killing the conservatives off. The conservative ethos can’t attract fresh blood or new thinkers with the attitude that all elites and intellectuals are B.A.D.
A tribe without reps cannot survive.
All men are NOT created equal. Right from conception some are more all equal than others in both memetic and genetic heretibilty.
All men are created equal under the law, endowed with certain unalienable rights.
But no men are equal under the genes.

Like Posner says, will is not a substitute for intellect.
“The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government ; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.”

…and yet without your bashing of conservatives, who would EVER read your drivel??? by what measurement of success or any other standard can we be assured of your superiority??? and isn’t moderate a euphemism for “no standards” (one that was certainly espoused by that champion of conservatism, Colin Powell when he voted for OBAMA – but it wasn’t a racist thing) Just why does any serious opponent of socialism need you guys around anyway????

Yeah, thanks for that, but that’s sort of what I was talking about. This ain’t Greece and our elites ain’t no Pythagoreans. You keep saying Kylonism and Palinism, but yore just substituting irrelevant references to dead people, anime ghost demons, and popular targets for what we commoners already have a word for (“democracy”).

I ain’t chicken to defend Palin, but I gotta admit I just like her cuz so many so-called elites get so worked up over her to prove they ain’t from the sticks.
I can only defend her to the extent I could defend any unimpressive hair-do that the people vote for. Moderate or not they all get helped by the same army of “experts”. We have an inexperienced, kind of dimwitted, extremist stammerer in office now.
Just another example of Kylon’s insistence on appearance and respect for the LCD I guess, like Palin, Bush, or whoever. But do you really think he’s gonna wreck everything or totally ruin the country anymore than any of the other arrogant busybodies we got to choose from?

Don’t you betray yr own short-sightedness and inferiority-complex by getting so worked up over one mediocre politician with a grating accent or commentator, as if this ain’t how the game’s always been played? Why single out her or Rush as especially low-brow, as if moderateness always means enlightened and sensible. Luckily our system don’t need no arbitrarily lukewarm straddlers to work how it’s sposed to. True moderates already know this.

Conor says— “In fact, one gets to be a conservative who must not be criticized based on some weird standard I cannot figure out, except to say that Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush are all occasionally invoked as guys beyond criticism from fellow right-wingers, so multiple divorces, the idea that the executive possesses unchecked power in wartime, torture, warrantless wiretapping, atrocious immigration proposals and wild deficit spending are apparently not disqualifying factors.”

My thesis is— multiple divorces, drug abuse, wartime powers, wiretapping, “fiscal incontinance”, torture, no big whup. BUT…..reveal yourself to be an elite or an intellectual by criticizing Rush, Palin, JTP or any of the joe or jill sixpacks, OR advocate moderation on culture war issues…..then you are no longer a conservative, and thus fair game for crits, shunning, excommunication, etc.

Joe, it isn’t Palin….she is just the glossy candy coating over an ancient lie……the lie that all men are created equal.
They are not.
From the moment of conception all men have varying genetic and memetic inheritance.
That is the simple truth.
Another quote from another book (that Sarah Palin hasn’t read). ;)

“Face the facts. Then act on them. It’s the only mantra I know, the only doctrine I have to offer you, and it’s harder than you’d think, because I swear humans are hardwired to do anything but. Face the facts. Don’t pray, don’t wish, don’t buy into centuries old dogma and dead rhetoric. Don’t give in to your conditioning or your visions or your fucked up sense of……whatever.”
…. Face the facts.Then act.

Comercial radio is solely about profit. Does anyone doubt for a moment if Limbaugh’s corporate backers were somehow convinced by consultants there was more profit to be made selling ads on a show about dog food, that Limbaugh’s format would magically and instantly change to three-hours-a-day-of-dog-food? Does anyone seriously imagine he would turn down millions because he actually believes the crap he spews daily? If you buy that, you probably believe that the engineers at GM really are Hannity’s “good friends” who just, like, loan him Escalades to try out on the weekend so he can rave about them on air…

You sound like a kid who just learned Santa wasn’t real and revels in blabbing this new discovery to all the other 7th gaders.

I don’t need books to tell me people ain’t equal or the same. Why do you keep saying it? The small inequalities we have at birth only really make a big difference if they is cultivated or not in life. Lebron would not be as spectacular and obviously superior if he were raised where sports ain’t taught, cultivated and learned.

Just like genetic inequality don’t make a whiff of dif when it comes to intellect and character in this country. Cuz it ain’t really taught or learned, at least by our political “class”. Sure they are taught that they are better, to justify all their arbitrary advantages, but not how to actually be better.

I don’t need books to tell me that there just aint any “elites” around who stand out like Lebron does in comparison to everyone else. If there were maybe you wouldnt have to keep harping on invisible ghosts and genes and just give an example of someone so clearly superior to Palin or Rush at what they do (govern and communicate).

So I’m sure you have some clever machine that derives Palin’s DNA and then accurately judges ones strand’s inferiority compared to another somehow, but it don’t cut cake, cuz there just aint that much genetic difference tween us, or a banana, and none of the superiors you keep talkin bout are Pythagoras or even close to a Lebron of the mind.

You can keep blamin’ the spirit of mediocrity or anime ghosts of democracy, but that’s just the way it is and has been, and yur just as possessed as the rest of us who already see it (the masses, We the People, who were wisely put in charge by the last generation of elites this country ever knew).
It really is silly to argue about the inequality of anyone in America today cuz everyone is already pretty ordinary and equal. Cuz genes just don’t make as much difference as you seem to think. It really is what you do and who you make yourself and we aren’t even capable of producing true elites in the areas that count. We are just good at producing affluence and kids who live off it who can then afford to feel superior and act arrogant about their genes, cuz that’s all they got.

From the moment I heard Rush—way back before Dan’s Bake Sale I was astounded that there was someone actually speaking for me. I also know you have to have a sense of humor and understand satire to appreciate it all. But after many years I also know that jokes from the right are funny and those from leftists are generally just mean and nasty with multiple curse words. I prefer the former.

No that is not what I’m saying.
I am saying, in response to Conor’s query , that you can do anything you like as a “conservative”, as long as you don’t get branded as an “elite” or an “intellectual”.
Torture, abuse prescription drugs, raise high school drop-outs and unwed teenage mothers, wiretap, divorce your spouse, spend other peoples money like a drunken sailer, pander to illegal immigrants, w/e.
Just don’t ever acknowlege that ability or education or experience or skill might count more than “spunk” and “grit” and love-of-jesus.

Rush’s occasional hypocrisy or shallow arguments are consistently in defense of movement conservatism. He may abandon some tenet of conservatism briefly, but it’s always in support of some other tenet. Which tenet he supports at any given time is a matter of his judgement as to priorities both in the political moment and as a measurement of overall importance. An example of this is strident advocacy of individualism and free choice and opposition to abortion. If you can’t comprehend how to achieve this balance intellectually then you aren’t as intellectually elite as you pretend to be.

Whereas Douthat, Frum, Powell, McCain, et.al. will abandon some tenet of conservatism in defense of political expediency, but not in favor of some other tenet of conservatism. Abandoning small government ideas in defense of the unborn or in defense of the homeland is one thing, abandoning it for the sake of expanding the welfare state is something else entirely. When you criticize a conservative from a liberal perspective don’t be shocked to hear boos and catcalls. Taylor’s objections to Rush and Hannity are more about perception (driven by a liberal media culture) than a trenchant analysis of their failure to be consistently conservative. Which is why conservatives don’t agree and aren’t particularly concerned.

This isn’t complicated. It isn’t hard to understand. In fact, it’s entirely predictable, which is why the comment section here looks like it does.

As to the objection to hyper-partisanship…grow up. Happy warriors are valuable even if they can’t fill every political role perfectly.